Vision and mission

The Oranjewoud Festival is an annual multi-day classical music festival held at various indoor and outdoor locations within the historic Oranjewoud park. Its excellent quality is ensured by contributions made by nationally and internationally renowned musicians, inspiring programmes and exciting forms of presentation.

Since the first edition in 2012, we have been committed to making the Oranjewoud Festival an event that reduces the gap between fine classical music and the general public without making any concessions to the content of this music. We’re doing this by combining high quality with broad accessibility, form with content, and presentation with a very special experience. We cherish and defend valuable traditions while also replacing ingrained habits with new ideas.

A closely-knit society

A stable, successful society can function only when strong sustainable connections exist among everyone in it. We are convinced that the Oranjewoud Festival can play a constructive role in this. It is our mission to get people connected by means of culture. Music and other arts can help counter the polarising forces that are winning ground everywhere and making society unnecessarily unstable. Values such as openness, solidarity and the acceptance of diversity go hand in hand with the arts and can be strengthened by them.

More than just a festival

At first glance, the Oranjewoud Festival is a festival meant to attract everyone: from lovers of classical music and culture lovers to families with children. We’re making it easy for everyone to enjoy music of excellent quality while promoting Heerenveen as a centre of culture. It’s our way of making our municipality attractive for both our residents and visitors from the Netherlands and other countries.

But the Oranjewoud Festival is more than this. We’re also investing in educational and hands-on projects. We’re thus committed to making a modest yet real contribution to a closely-knit society. For us, participation means that everyone should be able to take part, even people in isolated positions such as the lonely or those who are mentally disabled.